The liturgy on Tuesday the 8th includes the celebration of St. Dionysius of Corinth, who exercised a deep apostolate, also epistolary, in the 2nd century; the nun St. Julia Billiart, persecuted in the French Revolution for hosting Catholic priests; St. Justus and four holy martyrs of Antioch; or the Polish Blessed Augustus Czartoryski, who renounced to be a prince to join the Salesians.
The bishop of Corinth, St. Dionysius, belongs to the first generations of Christians. San Pablo had founded the Christian community at Corinth in the year 50, lived in the isthmus city for a year and a half, and wrote to them at least two of its lettersincluded in the New Testament.
St. Dionysius imitated in this epistolary apostolate to St. Paul and wrote, according to the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, seven cards to the churches of Lacedemonia, Athens, Cnossos, Nicomedia, Gortina, Amastris and Rome. In the latter, during the pontificate of Pope Soterius, he praises the charity of the Romans with the poor and shows his veneration for the Vicars of Christ. The saint worked on the philosophical errors of paganism, origin of heresies, defended the faith and died in 180.
Saint Julia Billiart, persecuted
Born in Cuvilly (France) in 1751, an illness left Saint Julie Billiart paralyzed in both legs. A disease from which she was miraculously cured when she was 50 years old, according to the Franciscan Directory. She was a pious woman. Persecuted during the French Revolution for harboring Catholic priests, she had to go into exile. She began to live in common with some companions and from there was born the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur for the Christian education of young girls. She died in 1816 and was canonized by St. Paul VI.
Other saints of April 8 are the martyrs of Antioch Timothy, Diogenes, Macarius and Maximus. St. Justus, a prophet quoted in the Acts of the Apostles: "In those days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Acabo, moved by the Spirit, stood up and prophesied..." (Acts 11:27-28). And also the Spanish Blessed Julián de San Agustín, a native of Medinaceli (Soria), who embraced the Franciscan life, and Domingo del Santísimo Sacramento Iturralde (Dima, Vizcaya), who in 1918 professed in the Order of the Most Holy Trinity.
